The UpTake: Who says encrypted currency isn't a good store of value? A group of Dogecoin fans rallied together to make a truly unique investment.

When Josh Wise isn't training for the Iron Man he's the professional race car driver behind car number 98.

He needed $50,000 from a sponsor to race at the Talladega Superspeedway, when he got a text message to inform him that a group Redditors had set their sights on the sponsorship.

"It was quite a feat they were trying to take on," Wise told Race Hub in a video released yesterday. "But long story, short, in about five or six days they raised the money in Dogecoin, which was like 67 million Dogecoin."

The campaign for the race, which runs from May 2 to May 4, was a coordinated effort between Reddit users on the /Nascar sub-Reddit and the sub-Reddit for /Dogecoin, an encrypted currency based on bitcoin's code. To stay in shape for his time behind the wheel 31-year-old Wise is currently training for the IronMan race at the end of the year.

Earlier this week the first images of the car were revealed. The Dogecar is indeed for real.

Michael del Castillo is the technology and innovation reporter at Upstart Business Journal, a member of American City Business Journals. A graduate of Columbia University, his work has appeared in the New Yorker. He is also the cofounder of Literary Manhattan, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting Manhattan’s literary community and creating new ways to appreciate literature.

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